“The life you are entering is very different from that which you have left behind. When you were at school you were under a strict discipline, you were compelled to study the classics and to play at various games. Cleanliness and truthfulness were enforced by punishment, while the most instinctive habits of decency and good manners could only be acquired at the expense of continual application. In a word, ‘you were a child and thought as a child.’ “Now all that is changed, you are free (within limits) to follow your own devices, to make or mar yourself. But if you use Oxford aright she will make you as she has made so many of your kind--a perfect gentleman. “But enough of these generalities. It is time to turn to one or two definite bits of advice which I hope you will receive in the right spirit. My dear boy, I want you to lay your hand in mine while I speak to you, not as an uncle, but rather as an elder brother. Promise me three things. First never to gamble in any form; secondly, never to drink a single glass of wine after dinner; thirdly, never to purchase anything without paying for it in cash. If you will make such strict rules for yourself and keep them religiously you will find after years of constant effort a certain result developing (as it were), you will discover with delight that your character is formed; that you have neither won nor lost money at hazards, that you have never got drunk of an evening, and that you have no debts. Of the first two I can only say that they are questions of morality on which we all may, and all _do_, differ. But the third is of a vital and practical importance. Occasional drunkenness is a matter for private judgment, its rightness or wrongness depends upon our ethical system; but debt is fatal to any hope of public success. “I hesitate a little to mention one further point; but--may I say it?--will you do your best to avoid drinking neat spirits in the early morning--especially Brandy? Of course a Governor and Tutor, whatever his abilities, gets removed in his sympathies from the younger men.[38] The habit may have died out, and if so I will say no more, but in my time it was the ruin of many a fair young life. “Now as to your day and its order. First, rise briskly when you are called, and into your cold bath, you young dog![39] No shilly-shally; into it. Don’t splash the water about in a miserable attempt to deceive your scout, but take an Honest British Cold Bath like a man. Soap should never be used save on the hands and neck. As to hot baths, never ask for them in College, it would give great trouble, and it is much better to take one in the Town for a shilling; nothing is more refreshing than a good hot bath in the Winter Term. “Next you go out and ‘keep’ a Mosque, Synagogue, or Meeting of the Brethren, though if you can agree with the system it is far better to go to your College Chapel; it puts a man right with his superiors and you obey the Apostolic injunction.[40]